On 2013-12-28 09:17, The Fridge wrote:
Since ECCM pinging was taken away the cloak gadget hasn't had a drawback significant enough for it's advantages.

Personally I want ECCM pinging back, because Sub hunting was fun.
But comprimise is okay.

that version of the cloak was soo much better then current version and planed, forced ugto and icc to use team work. now this planned change allows them to just wait out our cloak and point jump and hope they can kill us before jd timer or cloak timer is up
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On 2013-12-28 09:17, The Fridge wrote:
Since ECCM pinging was taken away the cloak gadget hasn't had a drawback significant enough for it's advantages.

Personally I want ECCM pinging back, because Sub hunting was fun.
But comprimise is okay.

that version of the cloak was soo much better then current version and planed, forced ugto and icc to use team work. now this planned change allows them to just wait out our cloak and point jump and hope they can kill us before jd timer or cloak timer is up

The thing is, jumping a KLuth ship is not a really good idea is it? Especially if its buddies are around. Here's the thing:

Kluth has armor that is pretty much comparable to Standard Armor in release (in the planned changes, Chitin will be closer to Composite, and Dusk Armor is getting a boost.). This means in addition to having effective firepower, they also have decent armor to last in toe to toe fight. You don't actually need to cloak.

Interestingly, Kluth wouldn't find it in their interest to just jump in and cloak, not longer being immune to the long range siege every other faction has to do. Kluth also has many platforms that allow for long range sieging, and in some ways better due to their innate ability for stealhiness.

But also, no more solo runs into dictor fields with no risk. No more jumping away and being completely untrackable in all situations. Actual decision making.

Kluth's cloak should be a useful tool, not a freaking Mundo goes where he pleases.

Testing it out, I've found the duration to be longer than I ever need to get into position, actually using it to stay hidden longer to build up my energy reserves. Something I could not do before on my own. I do always have to decide whether to fight or hide, or whether I need to reposition or if I actually have the energy to... and its so very aggressive. You cannot wait forever, and I don't know about a lot of human players but nobody likes the infinite waiting game.

Try it out, its not so bad. In some ways, its a lot more fun to play with.

On 2013-12-28 09:17, The Fridge wrote:
Since ECCM pinging was taken away the cloak gadget hasn't had a drawback significant enough for it's advantages.

Personally I want ECCM pinging back, because Sub hunting was fun.
But comprimise is okay.

that version of the cloak was soo much better then current version and planed, forced ugto and icc to use team work. now this planned change allows them to just wait out our cloak and point jump and hope they can kill us before jd timer or cloak timer is up

The thing is, jumping a KLuth ship is not a really good idea is it? Especially if its buddies are around. Here's the thing:

Kluth has armor that is pretty much comparable to Standard Armor in release (in the planned changes, Chitin will be closer to Composite, and Dusk Armor is getting a boost.). This means in addition to having effective firepower, they also have decent armor to last in toe to toe fight. You don't actually need to cloak.

Interestingly, Kluth wouldn't find it in their interest to just jump in and cloak, not longer being immune to the long range siege every other faction has to do. Kluth also has many platforms that allow for long range sieging, and in some ways better due to their innate ability for stealhiness.

But also, no more solo runs into dictor fields with no risk. No more jumping away and being completely untrackable in all situations. Actual decision making.

Kluth's cloak should be a useful tool, not a freaking Mundo goes where he pleases.

Testing it out, I've found the duration to be longer than I ever need to get into position, actually using it to stay hidden longer to build up my energy reserves. Something I could not do before on my own. I do always have to decide whether to fight or hide, or whether I need to reposition or if I actually have the energy to... and its so very aggressive. You cannot wait forever, and I don't know about a lot of human players but nobody likes the infinite waiting game.

Try it out, its not so bad. In some ways, its a lot more fun to play with.

[ This Message was edited by: Ent on 2013-12-29 12:24 ]

i guess yall are over looking the part of luth that was the best part, hitting hard and running since we didn't have the armor to stick around, now we have both cloak and armor.. we need to lose one, i reckon it shouldn't be the cloak.
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i guess yall are over looking the part of luth that was the best part, hitting hard and running since we didn't have the armor to stick around, now we have both cloak and armor.. we need to lose one, i reckon it shouldn't be the cloak.

Personally I would have gone with losing the armour and bringing luth back to HAVING to work in teams again. No more one ship owns the battlefield stuff. That's for the human factions.

Get us back into fleets of smaller ships with decent firepower and glass armour.

Edit: Sorry Borg's, I quoted because I misread yours and thought I was disagreeing, quite the opposite it seems [ This Message was edited by: Sauur on 2013-12-29 20:41 ]_________________[IMG]

Posted: 2013-12-30 06:37 &nbsp
Id love to have the old faction back. But that isnt what we have, isnt where they are going, and isnt going to happen. Only because of this, do I advocate a change to cloak, because it doesnt fit the faction anymore the way it is now. I dont actually LIKE the way it is now, but not willing to beat my head against a brick wall. So my view is, if it aint reverting, then at least make it work within the current scheme. And the old way of cloak doesnt fit.
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Joined: April 22, 2010Posts: 201From: A Point Perfectly Computed Yet Never Repeating

Posted: 2014-01-01 17:44 &nbsp
So to put it in a nutshell what are the exact changes?

If cloak is becoming time-limited with cooldown...

Then...

Is K'luth armour being decreased or increased?

(there were a few posts stating that Chitin is going to be 'close' to ICC composite - Higher or lower HP strength?

Dusk is going to get increased, by how much and where will it lie on comparison with the other factions?)

I really had no real problem with the cloak as it was, it was the fact that the armour of certain K'Luth ships was so strong that getting Kills with ICC weaponry was so difficult even with coordinated teamwork (and I even mean 4 on 1 ) without even mentioning cloak - we had many battles with Luth over Barnard's Star when often they felt so safe they would fight entirely uncloaked for prolonged periods and we still did still did so little damage.

DS has lost many players on ICC due to the imbalance. Some have switched faction and some have left DS altogether in protest until things are evened out.

Buffing K'luth armour in any way is going to be a mistake in terms of balance - I was just in Beta cruising in a Strike Carrier Tier 3 Dread attacking K'Luth Armoured and standard carriers with 14 Valance cannons and Torpedo fighters and I was unable to bring down a single one before it jumped. I willl have to do more testing but that is one of the best ships the ICC has and it felt extremely tough going against even such small ships.

Do what you need to with cloak but to balance against ICC K'Luth armour needs to come down or ICC weapons need to do greater damage.

Chitin armor is getting a decrease. Dusk armor is getting an increase, but will still be the weakest armor in terms of strength. It should be more viable now. Chitin should not be nearly as durable, While ICC ships are certainly not scoring kills in my tests, Kluth ships certainly cannot withstand the same kind of firepower.

Quote:

Buffing K'luth armour in any way is going to be a mistake in terms of balance - I was just in Beta cruising in a Strike Carrier Tier 3 Dread attacking K'Luth Armoured and standard carriers with 14 Valance cannons and Torpedo fighters and I was unable to bring down a single one before it jumped. I willl have to do more testing but that is one of the best ships the ICC has and it felt extremely tough going against even such small ships.

There is no "best" ships no matter what, just ships that are better for some situations than others. A Strike Carrier doesn't have the kind of volley damage (except maybe with Gauss cannons) to kill another carrier that is playing correctly before it can jump away. Especially one that can simply cloak and evade your fighters. Try out something like a Border Cruiser vs. a Siphon or something. Its a very noticeable difference between Beta and Release.
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Posted: 2014-01-01 21:31 &nbsp
Chitin Armor in release currently has a base HP of 40,500 hp. By comparison, UGTO Standard Armor has 45,000 hp, while both ICC Composite Armor and Active Shields have 36,000 (but the latter has much higher regen and can be redirected). Chitin falls right in between the other two factions, and at the time I thought this would work. Experience has proven me wrong.

In 1.703 Chitin is being reduced down to the same 36,000 hp as the other two, but it has a very high signature penalty and also the second-highest mass penalty of all armors (Ablative Armor is still higher), so ships that use it will have a harder time both cloaking and dodging than ships using Organic. It also self-repairs far slower than Organic, so AHR has to work harder to recover between fights.

Dusk Armor is not currently gaining anything in the way of HP compared to release; it still only has 15,000 base HP, making it hands-down the most fragile armor in the game. What it's gaining is signature strength; its base signature strength is going from -0.15 per level (release) to -0.3 per level (1.703), so ships employing it will be as sneaky or moreso than ICC ships that have a double set of Ghost Shields.
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Posted: 2014-01-02 01:10 &nbsp
Anyone who has ever known what they were doing in DS, has been able to shoot and destroy luth while cloaked. I actually miss the Ping effect of old days. It made being luth more fun. But, making the ability lose duration is just a drag. Being able to stay cloaked ontop of an enemy stat for hours is just part of the game. If Luth can't stay cloaked for long term then give them some more armor or more firepower or a weak line of shields... Something... Change cloak, maybe they are only take half damage while mid cloak?

Posted: 2014-01-02 02:52 &nbsp
Let's just try it out in Beta instead of reminiscing about the 'good ol' days'. Granted that it may not be the implementation that you prefer, but changes are inevitable.

I'll admit that I don't really like the idea of having a time limited cloak. I would much rather have the 1.5 cloak back, and deal with pinging (yes it was fun evading sonar pings and playing the sub/destroyer game), and I can even deal with the current sig vs constant drain of the current cloak system.

But after trying it out, the 1.73 cloak isn't all that bad. Players will just have to adapt to it and find out the best way to make it work for them. I can already think of a few ways which Kluth players can benefit greatly from the new cloak... especially some of those EW heavy ships.

The best thing you guys can offer here is to test out the new cloak's pros and cons and then offer feedback with the numbers to support your views. That way, the devs can tweak the cloak times, cooldown, energy vs sig figures until it pans out nicely for all factions.

[ This Message was edited by: Kenny_Naboo on 2014-01-02 02:56 ]_________________... in space, no one can hear you scream.....

On 2014-01-01 21:31, Jim Starluck wrote:
Chitin Armor in release currently has a base HP of 40,500 hp. By comparison, UGTO Standard Armor has 45,000 hp, while both ICC Composite Armor and Active Shields have 36,000 (but the latter has much higher regen and can be redirected). Chitin falls right in between the other two factions, and at the time I thought this would work. Experience has proven me wrong.

In 1.703 Chitin is being reduced down to the same 36,000 hp as the other two, but it has a very high signature penalty and also the second-highest mass penalty of all armors (Ablative Armor is still higher), so ships that use it will have a harder time both cloaking and dodging than ships using Organic. It also self-repairs far slower than Organic, so AHR has to work harder to recover between fights.

Dusk Armor is not currently gaining anything in the way of HP compared to release; it still only has 15,000 base HP, making it hands-down the most fragile armor in the game. What it's gaining is signature strength; its base signature strength is going from -0.15 per level (release) to -0.3 per level (1.703), so ships employing it will be as sneaky or moreso than ICC ships that have a double set of Ghost Shields.

Nice. I can see EW heavy ships with Dusk armor and Def Enh + Weap/Beam multi combos being a common setup already.

You get your ECM and Dusk armor to reduce your sig really down low, and def upgrades to mitigate the weakened armor, plus the beam/weap multi to give you some punch for a quick one-two strike before jumping out.

The Eclipse could be a more useful ship. [ This Message was edited by: Kenny_Naboo on 2014-01-02 03:02 ]_________________... in space, no one can hear you scream.....

Posted: 2014-01-02 10:22 &nbsp
The new cloak mechanics makes me wonder what role Beacons will play besides just raising sig so it's harder to "ghetto cloak" with ECM. May want to consider either raising Beacon speed so you don't have to be literally ontop of your target to hit it, or having Beacons themselves be low sig so it's harder to PD them. They don't actually activate until they hit the target so they should be even less easy to detect than a Missile given they'd have to be much smaller than even Frigate class Missiles.
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The problem with your cloak now, you silly kluth, is it doesnt break as it was intended. So quit your crying. Your cloak is more op now than it was supposed to be.

I hope it will curtail some more of the dread use, an issue that continues to bust the balance of the factions. (refer to killboard for your proof)

sorry to say but i don't see dread use curtailing kluth should be able to cloak and sit in wait then decloak hit hard and cloak back up to run away thats how they was ment to function i always see all this op stuff about kluth but never about ugto with there emp weapons that can kill all of a ships systems and make it completely useles with luth after getting hit by emp weapons they cant jump at all once jd is down and by the time you get it back cloak timer would have long since run out and oyu would be dead no i see alot of people not playing kluth any more once the patch comes out then it will be icc and ugto space with the ocasional kluth ai flying around

On 2014-01-02 10:22, Talien wrote:
The new cloak mechanics makes me wonder what role Beacons will play besides just raising sig so it's harder to "ghetto cloak" with ECM. May want to consider either raising Beacon speed so you don't have to be literally ontop of your target to hit it, or having Beacons themselves be low sig so it's harder to PD them. They don't actually activate until they hit the target so they should be even less easy to detect than a Missile given they'd have to be much smaller than even Frigate class Missiles.

How about Beacons be like..sort of deployable AoE devices? You'd launch them and they'd give +something signature within say 300 gu. Or, maybe once you launched them they'd "detonate", giving anyone within the radius +something signature for 10-15 seconds. Lower class ships would be able to get out of the radius easily, but it'd be harder for larger ships to maneuver out of it. You could have ECM beacons that do the opposite too.